Fallout: City from the Sea
by TrashPandatron
Summary: In the year 2388, half of Orlando is under the Atlantic and the other half is controlled by drug kingpins known only as the Massas. Deep in the Everglades lie mutant alligators, mosquitoes that take more than a bite, vaults that still hold survivors of the Great War, and an addict named Bernie, just trying to find the next high.
1. Chapter 1: The Addict

The Addict

Somberness should have known something was wrong when she felt her foot fly through the brick wall, but between the raider swinging the chainsaw, the ghoul beseeching his god while they were attacked, and her blood singing out for more chems, Somberness didn't give two shits if a little dust and mortar got in the way of some peace and quiet.

The raider howled and swung the chainsaw around again, the roar and stink of gasoline making Somberness' head swell.

"Enough!" She screamed at the both of them.

"Ghost of the pines, save us from this attack on our physical bodies! Smite down the one who seeks to destroy us-!"

"WHAAAAAGGH!" And the savage swung for the Brother's head.

Almost instinctually Somberness seized the raider's shoulder and threw him down in the mud. The maddened raider threw himself in a tantrum on the ground, grappling for her leg. Somberness saw a little humor in it all. The ridiculousness of it.

"No!" She told the man missing most of his teeth as he sought to bite her leg. His bright red gums gnashed at her ankle as both hands tried to keep it weighted to the ground. "No! Stop it!"

The ghoul had stopped praying and was now attempting to pull the jungle-crazed man back by his feet without being kicked.

"I said stop!" And Somberness lifted her foot and brought it down on the savage's head. It exploded like a sun-swelled grape, blood and brains in a spray pattern up her boot, a long arc of blood reaching out the sides of his head-mush where his ears had been. The chainsaw stopped it's roaring, and the legs gave a few death spasms before they lay twitching on the ground.

This was the worst thing she'd done since she left. She felt no guilt, no panic, not yet-, Somberness was still coming to grips with the fact that she had just committed murder and crushed someone's skull under her foot. This was the worst thing she'd ever done since the Long Time Ago. Maybe even worse than what happened in the Long Time Ago.

The ghoul stared, shocked, but not afraid. He had no eyebrows, but perhaps they would have reached his scalp. Somberness stared at the brain that stained her shitty shoes made out of old plastic bags and sail, then turned and threw up.

"I, I didn't mean to," she coughed.

 _That's not possible_ , she thought dully, looking at the green bile on the dirt beside the bloody pulp of a head.

Her knees became weak. Her tailbone smacked the ground so hard she tasted blood in her mouth- she'd bit her cheek, but it didn't help. Somberness groaned. She felt hands on her shoulders, an astonished voice, unafraid and unabashed at her violence, and she felt the black crawling up in her brain. She supposed later she could have fought it, but it was too much like peace, and so she let it wash over her and take her back into the dream.

Somberness awoke in the Church of Moss' medic camp. She recognized the filthy canvas walls from her last visits there, recovering from too much jet or psycho.

But this wasn't like a jet or psycho comedown. This was way more than that. More than physically exhausted, she felt like her favorite dog died. Worse. Like her favorite dog died and she knew that she'd never love another dog again. Like she'd eaten her favorite dog, even when she knew she'd never love again. "Ah, Gods above."

"Oh good, you're awake," The voice came from a ghoul, sitting cross-legged on the opposite mattress.

His voice sent spikes of sorrow through her, and Somberness started to cry.

"I'm sorry, did I startle you?" His voice, like all the Brothers, had genuine concern in it.

"No…" Somberness blubbered. "I… I… Your voice, makes me sad?" she sniffed, "And I don't know why?"

"You're recovering from a near-fatal dose of a chem. I suspect it's one of the side-effects."

"Gods Above!" Somberness cried, her heart breaking at his words, "What did I _take?_ "

"We don't know yet," the ghoul admitted, and folded his hands over his chest. Somberness recognized him.

"You're, _hic_ , you're the Follower's liaison right? _Hic_ , from the Drowned City?" Her mind was struggling to fight through the sadness and exhaustion. But she knew this. Something was different this time.

She was all-too familiar with the Brother's med camp and their rehab programs. She's sat in this very tent before, purging herself, swearing to herself it would be the last time she'd ever put another chem in her blood or pill in her mouth. But liaisons don't bother with addicts like her. Gary or Steven was supposed to be here, helping her throw up. Not this guy. This guy was important. They didn't spend time on wastes of smooth flesh like her.

Her mind was running in the dark, trying to feel its way to light, when the ghoul nodded.

"I'm not usually in the rehabilitation tents, if that's what you're asking. But I'm told you're a regular here," Somberness felt a wave of uselessness and guilt that crashed into her core, something that hadn't happened at the mention of her past failures in a long time. She'd always thought she'd was inured to it. "Your name is Somberness, right?"

"You can call me Bernie," She moaned, and hiccupped again. "Why am I so _sad?"_

"I'm Coleson," he said. "I'm investigating a chem that's caused a string of overdoses. It usually follows the pattern you displayed to Brother Gregory. Super-strength, lightning fast reflexes, a super-chem basically…"

"Sadness?"

"Ah, no, actually," Coleson scratched his head, "Sadness is new," There was an awkward pause as he decided whether or not to continue, "No one has ever actually survived the drug. So that's something to add to the book."

"No one has survived taking it? But you said…"

"There are eye-witness reports of people exhibiting the abilities this drug supposedly bestows… But they die afterwards. Supposedly their hearts give out."

"Supposedly?"

"Maybe they're dying of a broken heart?" Coleson smiled wanly. "I'll let you get some rest. But I have more questions for you when you're not so… Depressed."

At that he stood to leave, but at the sudden prospect of sitting in the tent alone Bernie cried out. Coleson started.

"Please don't go," She begged, for the first time in years, "Please." The idea of an empty tent terrified her, hit her heart in a way it never had. The loneliness of it. Why had she never considered the emptiness of being without a person? Her soul could escape her body and no one would go looking for it. No one would care. "Please, I just, I just can't be alone."

"Of course," Brother Coleson said, matter-of-fact, "So you shouldn't be."

He walked back to the mattress on the floor and sat down beside her, and took the hand she tentatively offered. He sat cross-legged as if he were just another Brother, waiting for the addict to be released from the fit, or a parent waiting for the child to feel safe to sleep again.

Bernie brought her legs up and kept her back straight, the hand the only appendage allowed to leave the invisible fence she built around her body. A perfect triangle, she thought. Something geometrically indestructible. The sadness was threatening to wash over her again, so she retreated, deep inside herself, to the Long Time Ago. She scrambled through her memories searching for her favorite distraction, and delved deeper into them as she retreated from the enormity of feeling that threatened to crush her.

2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31…

No, it wasn't doing the job. She had to go deeper, she could feel her heart still breaking.

1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987, 1597, 2584, 4181, 6765, 10946, 17711, 28657, 46368, 75025, 121393…


	2. Chapter 2: The Barter

The Barter

When she woke up again, the Follower's liaison, Coleson, was gone. But so too was the sadness. She pulled the blanket that had been given to her around her shoulders. It was dark. She could go back to sleep, but as she closed her eyes she realized she'd been dreaming about the Long Time Ago. She saw a few flashes of light behind her eyelids, the incoming dream, and pulled herself out of it just in time.

She sighed heavily. Bernie realized she could hear the swamp. The bugs and gods-above know what else sang and chirped and hummed at an almost deafening level. It was, if not relaxing, familiar. Safe. She was in the church's camp, on the edge of the swampland. She would be taken care of here. The Long Time Ago was a whole ocean away.

She sat up and picked the gunk out of her eyes. The chem. The blood. She remembered the sound of her foot popping down on the raider's head with the sound of a watermelon exploding. Sickeningly gooey. She'd killed someone. With a witness- the ghoul that had come to preach to her. Had he reported her? What had happened before the raider showed up?

Bernie put a hand on her head, thinking. She'd been trying to get rid of the ghoul- they came by every week or so to convince her to stop taking chems and accept their ghost-tree-swamp god. He'd been a persistent one. She had tried walking away but he followed her, unafraid of this junkie and her filthy sin. But then the raider came and jumped them both in that back alley. Stupid… She should have noticed someone had holed up there, but that morning… What happened that morning? Bernie drew a blank. There was a stretch of time missing in her internal clock. What about the night before? The night before she'd been throwing up some bad Dandy Apples. In the morning…

Bernie grunted with frustration and smacked her temple, trying to shake something loose. Yellow light on a dirt road? Outside of her little warehouse. A rock in her bottom. Begging for chems?

"Ah, you're awake, I'd just come to check on you." It was Coleson, with the ghoul who saw the murder in tow. Bernie looked at him. His molted face gave nothing away.

"Yeah. I'm feeling a lot better," she said, keeping her voice neutral.

"That's good," Coleson nodded, "Does that mean you can answer some questions for me now?"

Bernie felt the urge to flee rise up in her, but she forced it back down, "What kind of questions?"

"Questions about what happened two days ago, outside your warehouse."

Bernie blinked, "Wait a second, _two days?"_ That was more time than it felt. She didn't even feel like she had been asleep for that long.

Coleson looked sheepish, "I gave you a sedative. You kept waking up every few hours, crying. Sleeping it off felt like a more humane option. Would rather I not have?..."

"I've been asleep for two days?" Bernie said again, more to herself.

"I'm sorry if I-."

"No, no, it's fine. Just… I don't remember waking up… Except the once…"

"When you first came in, sure. You were at your most lucid then, so that's no surprise. However, the lion's share of your withdrawal came afterwards. Do you remember what you took that first morning?" Coleson sat down cross-legged on the opposite mattress again. The witness remained standing respectfully in the corner.

"Two days of withdrawal?"

"It was quite disturbing, actually. I've seen bad fits before, but your case was something else," Coleson admitted, "But back to the question. Do you remember anything?"

"Ahm… No," she said truthfully. "Only bits and pieces. I can't even remember what chem I took…"

"It wouldn't have had a name," Coleson waved his hand, "Do you remember who you spoke with, that morning?"

Bernie ran a hand through her matted, coiled hair, surprised by how greasy it was. She'd have to find some soap. Maybe the Brothers could spare some…

"Bernie?"

"No," she said finally. "But why wouldn't the drug have had a name?"

Coleson seemed to shift, but his face remained placid, "We haven't discovered one so far."

"But that doesn't answer my question," Bernie said stubbornly. "I don't remember hardly anything from that morning. That must have been some pretty powerful stuff."

Coleson sighed. "This is just speculation," he said carefully, "My own personal speculation… But all of the victims have died so far, so that's nearly all we can do… I think it's a new drug, out of the Drowned City. My fellow Brothers and Sisters and I suspect the drug trade there is about to introduce something new to the market. I think it's being tested outside the city, though. To make sure it works, you see." Coleson watched her face, to make sure she understood, "They can't sell a product that kills their client. They want the client so addicted they won't be able to live without it. But it hasn't been working so far. As far as I can tell, you're its first survivor."

"I didn't think the Drowned City cared about us, way out here," Bernie suddenly felt watched. She fought the urge to turn around, and pulled the blanket over her head.

"Except to experiment on," Coleson's voice became a touch more gravelly than usual. "I think the chem was mixed in with other substances, maybe you bought some mentats that had just looked like mentats… We aren't sure."

"I don't do mentats, just the jet, maybe a little psycho."

Coles raised his eyebrows, but his tone was approving, "That's good, we can narrow down the possibilities then. Who do you usually buy your supply from?"

Bernie hesitated.

"We're not there to bust them up," Coleson's voice suddenly became cold, "We don't have the manpower. Even if we really, really wanted to."

Bernie looked at the liaison from the city and back at the witness, "If I show you, will you drop the charges?"

Coleson suddenly leaned back, "What charges?"

"I killed a raider back there," Bernie said pointedly. "I'm sure that one's told you."

"Brother Gregory said that you had saved both their lives against a feral smoothskin," Coleson said, looking back at the witness. "Was there something more to it than that?"

"Absolutely not, Brother Coleson," Brother Gregory assured him.

"Well, he was attacking us," Bernie said wryly, "I suppose if that's the spin you want to put on it…"

"It doesn't sound like a spin, it sounds like the truth."

Bernie shrugged irritably, blanket still over her head, "Another truth would be that I could have just knocked him out. But I didn't know my foot would go through his skull."

"I see," Coleson said. "Well, at any rate, no one has come forward demanding justice. I think it's safe to assume the raider had no next of kin who will be looking for him."

Bernie nodded. That made sense. But still, the sound of the man's skull being crushed, and then the small sucking, moist sound afterwards, made her shudder.

"Okay," she said finally, "But I have to go with you. To show you. You won't find it on your own."

"Show me?" Coleson said skeptically.

Bernie nodded, "And just you. More than two and it's a threat, you see?"

"Brother Coleson, maybe-." Brother Gregory pipped up from the corner, but Coleson waved his hand dismissively.

"Another risk to take, Brother Sherman. A necessary risk," He looked at Bernie, "Besides," he smiled amiably, "I trust Somberness."

"Ugh," She waved her hand, "Just Bernie."

"I see. Where did you get your name, if I may ask?"

"Mama didn't want any kids."

"I see," Coleson said again, and stood with a small grunt, "Well, then, I'll leave you to rest. When you feel up to it, we'll go visit your supplier. No rush."

Just then Bernie realized she was exhausted. Talking had taken a lot of what little energy she had. Sleep seemed to pull at her neck and she lay back with a creak of rusty springs, "Right."


	3. Chapter 3: The Bees

The Bees

A day later Bernie led Coleson off the broken bridge. The skeleton of its fallen remains had long sunk into the mire of the swamp, and so it looked as if this bridge had had the rest of it taken away. She pulled down the sleeves of her jacket and gently pushed the singing nettles away. "Don't let them touch you," she said, "They hurt like a bitch."

"Nettles don't bother us," Coleson said, meaning ghouls. "Nor does poison ivy, though thorn bushes can give us a little trouble."

"Huh," Bernie said, keeping her back along the bridge support, "I didn't know that."

"I'm more inclined to think it's a product of the radiation than of our skin's properties. My brother is a scientist, working up north."

"You have a brother? Like a blood brother?"

"Of course," Coleson looked surprised, "Don't normal humans have brothers? We became ghouls together, but many are not so lucky. Anyways, he's doing research on our anatomy. Why we are the way we are, and the like." They jumped down a broken slab of concrete, "Normally radiation just kills people. Or changes their genome structure so that they cannot live for long. He's trying to discover why we are not. Dead, I mean. Why some of us go feral, why some of us glow."

"I've never seen a glowing one. I think it might be a little scary," Bernie admitted.

"I met one once. Bright fellow. If you'll pardon the pun."

Bernie stepped under the bridge, into its shadow, "None taken. Now be careful. This is where things can get hairy."

Bernie approached an old sewage pipe, large enough for a child to walk through. She bent down and sniffed. Coleson watched from a few feet back.

"It's safe," Bernie said, suddenly having second thoughts. The signal was that if the pipe smelt like sewage, there was nothing for sale. If it smelt like wisteria, the market was open. But bringing Coleson felt dangerous, and she couldn't put her finger on why.

"You alright?" Coleson asked.

Bernie waved her hand, "If it'll help get this chem off the market… I don't want anyone else having their heads stomped in."

"An admirable ideal."

"Yeah, I'm a knight of fucking chilvary."

She got down on her hands and knees and began to crawl into the tunnel. She half expected Coleson to protest, but she heard him scrabbling behind her, his knees scraping along the moist, rusty bottom.

"It's _chivalry_ , by the way," he whispered behind her. "Chivalry was a code of honor sworn by pre-war knights…"

"It's best if we don't talk while we're down here," she whispered back. "Don't want to startle anything."

Coleson went quiet. Bernie suddenly felt bad, as if she'd told him to shut up. But that was stupid, she thought. It really _was_ dangerous to talk in the tunnel. It was stupid to feel bad if she'd told him to shut up anyway. She didn't owe this guy anything special. It was nice of him to hold her hand and all, but that didn't warrant anything.

But still. The silence felt weird now. They scrapped along the tunnel until it rusted open above them, where dim light shone through. At the first hole big enough for both of them, Bernie poked her head out and looked around. They were in a deep chasm, a sinkhole that became more than a skinkhole over years and years of erosion. Above, there was a sliver of daylight about the size of Bernie's thumb.

"Okay," she whispered back to Coleson, "Come on out."

She crawled out onto the ground, and stood slowly, easing her back into standing.

Coleson crawled out as well, and sat on his knees as he gaped at the surroundings, " _Bees?"_

The walls were covered with vines and fine red dirt, but decorating them were tiny holes out of which swarmed hundreds of thousands of honeybees. The air itself vibrated and sang with tiny wings.

"Yeah," she breathed, remembering the first time she saw it. She was too thirsty for jet to appreciate its weirdness, but she supposed it was beautiful in a way. "Just don't make any sudden moves."

Coleson looked around, "There's no one here," he whispered still. "So it's a drop-off point."

"I don't think so," Bernie said, stepping over to a darker side of the cave, "I never see anyone come in or out of the pipe. I've never been able to find the other entrance, the ones the bees use. I think it's the _bees,_ somehow."

"The bees?" Coleson said, incredulously.

Bernie suddenly felt defensive, "Yeah. The bees."

"How is that possible?"

"Beats me," Bernie shrugged irritably, "I just deliver the flowers."

"Flowers?"

Bernie pulled her hands out of her pockets, stuffed full with dandelions and ragweed. "Here," she said, offering a broken stem of ragweed to Coleson, "You have to offer them something."

Coleson took the flower, skeptically holding it at length. He looked like a child, offering a flower to a girl he didn't particularly like. Bernie turned away and held up her two hands full of the crushed flowers up to the ceiling. "They don't know you," she said, "So just let them smell you."

Slowly but surely, bees floated off the walls and started landing on Coleson. Bees came to Bernie and started nuzzling her hands in their tiny, warm way. As more bees came, her hands started to heat up with the friction and burning energy of the insects.

"This is… inexplicable," Coleson said softly.

She turned her head slowly to glance at the ghoul, and found him crawling with bees, his eyes screwed shut against them. They had engulfed his hand holding the ragweed, the air around it swarming with black and yellow insects.

"Slowly set your flower on the ground," Bernie said, doing the same. She spread out the flowers on the floor, and patient waited for the bees to climb off her hand and onto the dirt.

They booth stood slowly, and looked at each other.

"Who showed you this place?" He asked, glancing around nervously.

"Some old man. He's dead now," Bernie stepped away, up to the cave wall. "He taught me how to make the offering."

"I bet it's the queen," Coleson said suddenly. "Bees are sensitive to stimuli, and actually have a fairly complex social system and different ways of communication, controlled by a queen. Did you know that bees are actually aerodynamically impossible? Bees are physically supposed to be incapable of flight-."

"Yeah, I know," Bernie said, "Surface to weight ratio is all wrong. Actually it's totally possible a bee can fly, it just doesn't fly like a bird. It uses, fuck what is it-, dynamic stall, the same physics helicopters used to use. Creates its own lift." Bernie shook her head irritably, ready to be gone, "Let's get the stuff and get out of here."

"You're still getting the drugs?" Coleson asked, tone cold.

"Sure. Why wouldn't I?" She glared at him, challenging him to say something.

He didn't. Coleson just shook his head and turned away, walking back towards the sewer pipe.

"You don't understand," she growled in frustration.

"You're right about that," he said as he disappeared into the pipe.

Bernie shook her head and slowly inserted her hand into the wall. She felt the edges of tiny wings and legs tickle her wrist and fingertips. It was hot inside the wall. She felt the edges of a small tin container, and slowly pulled it out, careful not to crush anyone.

She turned it over in her hands. Bernie knew she could just drop it and be done. The Church of the Moss camp hadn't had chem withdrawal meds in months, but she could ask them for help. She could just drop the tin and walk away. All she had to do was pry her fingers loose of it.

But inside was peace and quiet. Inside, the Long Time Ago would stay away. Inside, all of her problems could be solved for the next night as she forgot who she was, forgot what living might be. If she let go of that, she would have to deal with it for the next night, and the next night, and the night after that. She wanted to die, but she was too much of a coward to kill herself. That was it. So she chose a smoother way. That had always been the story.

Why should it change? Who would care?

Bernie pried open the tin and picked up the single syringe of jet inside.

She held it up to the light, knowing she could still drop it and walk away. She frowned, and brought the syringe closer to her eyes. She gasped, "Coleson!" She whispered harshly. She resisted the urge to run, "Coleson!"

Bernie dropped the tin and walked quickly over to the sewer pipe, holding the tainted jet syringe carefully in her hand. She crawled with it cradled against her chest, aware of how fragile the shitty glass was. "Coleson, wait!" She whispered into the pitch black. She went as quickly as she dared, but when she emerged through the other side he wasn't there. He must have gone back to the Church.

She ran, gripping the syringe in her fist, watching her step and trying to hurry and much as she could. "Coleson!" She called, but there was no answer. By the time she reached the camp, she was out of breath, feeling bile rise in her throat from the running. She hadn't exercised like this in ages. Holy shit she was out of shape. "Coleson!" She called again, voice ragged. She rested, hands on knees, trying to get her breath back. That was when she smelt it. The smoke. Acrid and stinging. It smelt _dirty._ Not brushfire smoke.

Bernie straightened. The Church of Moss camp was usually bustling with ghouls and traders needing supplies. Its gates, framed by think swamp brush and tall cottonwood trees on either side, were open with no one coming through.

"Oh no," Bernie breathed, and started running again.


	4. Chapter 4: The Royal We

The Royal We

The tents were torn down. The bodies of ghouls lined the paths she had walked that morning. A column of brown smoke boiled up from a pile of burning wagons, tents, and any other debris the attackers could find. These people were alive this morning. It was disorienting. Bernie spun, taking in the devastation around her.

"Coleson!" She screamed.

The silence of the camp was perhaps the most awful part. There were no bugs. No buzzing of life. Everything was dead silent, like the trees were in shock. She bent down to one of the bodies. The ghoul's eyes starred over her shoulder in a milky, calm gaze. The Brother's clothes were in disarray, one arm up above his head, one leg out to the side. What could have killed a ghoul? She thought. She touched his cheek. Still warm. She bent his fingers. Stiff, but not long dead. Bernie closed the ghoul's eyes and stood.

She went to the next one. This ghoul lay on her side, a look of wide-eyed shock on her face. Blackish blood stained her shoulders, and Bernie turned her over. She put a hand over her mouth, more out of surprise than disgust.

"They're all like that," Coleson's voice made her jump. She turned. His eyes were drawn down, like he'd aged ten years since she last saw him. He looked exhausted. Like an addict in need of a fix, anything to take the pain away. "Their backs ripped out. Why? Of all the ways to kill people?"

"Coleson," she said his name again, but he shook his head.

They stood in silence. It was always Bernie being the one encouraged, comforted. Mollified. Now that the tables had turned, all the little anecdotes and sayings that had been thrown at her over the years evaporated, and she had no idea what to say.

She looked down at her hand, "I… The jet is tainted. Thought you might want to look at it…"

Coleson nodded, "Later. For sure…"

Bernie bent over and turned the body onto its back. She closed its eyes. She was no stranger to death. But this was something different. She could feel that much. This was not raiders, or some vault junkies from the swamp. All the medical supplies was still here. She could see the crates stacked up against the far wall. Raiders wouldn't have forfeited so quickly, they would have hung around, picking over the bodies for a few days before moving on.

"Let me help you bury them," Bernie herd herself saying. "They took care of me, and never asked too many questions. Let me at least do that."

She turned to find Coleson nodding. "And we need to get word to the Drowned City," He said. "Their northern base has just been massacred. Reasons unknown." He turned away, back toward the bonfire of his church.

It took them two days to bury them all. On the final day, Bernie herself said a few words over Gregory, the idiot who said she had saved them.

"I could have killed him just as easily," She said softly, "It's a matter of luck the raider pissed me off first. I had no idea what my strength was. I could have pushed him away and crushed his chest. But he wasn't afraid of me. He wasn't afraid of the raider either. He thought I was trying to save him. I'll never deserve that."

"He was a good Brother," Coleson added. "Never fell asleep during sermon. Always volunteered to go to the nastier places we need to shed our light on. Cheerful." Coleson sighed, "You never find the cheerful types anymore. They always go unappreciated."

Bernie nodded in agreement. Then shook her head, "What happened here?"

"I have no idea," Coleson growled, "But I fully intend to find out."

"But how?" Bernie asked, "We didn't find anything in the wreckage…"

"And that itself is telling," Coleson turned to her. "I was sent here to investigate a chem that had been giving people super-powers and then killing them. The morning after I find the first survivor, everyone in the church is killed. You can't tell me that is a coincidence."

"All this?" Bernie looked at the thirty-odd graves they had just dug, "For a chem?"

"Don't you remember the chem wars fifty years back?"

"I've heard of them," Bernie looked Coleson in the eyes.

"I was there. And believe me, a lot more have been killed for a lot less."

"So you think this is some chem war?"  
"No," Coleson said, "I think this is some beginning. They can't sell a drug that kills their customers. But you survived. They're perfecting it," Coleson spun on his heel and marched towards the medical supply tents.

"So why kill me?" Bernie raced in front of him, tossing up canvas in search of a crowbar. Coleson dug through toolboxes and ammo cases, but Bernie beat him to it. "Got it," she ran over to the right supply box with "MICROSCOPES-LIGHT" stamped on the side along with other fragile equipment. Bernie was glad these things had been labeled. She was too much of a wimp to get the lid off, and Coleson came up behind her to pry off the lid in one go.

She took the crowbar again and attacked another case labeled with "GLASSWARE".

"I'll get that," Coleson barked at her, "Go get the genny from the toolshed."

Bernie ran, feeling better than she had in two days- hell, a month. She was doing something. Something more productive than being blitzed out of her mind. She was blitzed out of her mind, but on curiosity, a need to know, rather than a need to forget.

She set up a table and wheeled the large metal generator, on what amounted to as a dolly, over to Coleson.

"Don't you need to titrate the jet?"

Coleson shook his head, "They would have constructed the drug to perfectly interact with the jet. It's not actual jet, it's a cross-over between the two, its own chemical at this point."

"If that were so, why can't these people just sell it as this half-jet half-super-powered chem? Why hide it?"

"That's a good question," Coleson said into a flask. He swilled the dark blue mixture around, added a drop of something that sizzled, and emptied a drop onto a glass slide. He fussed with the gears, trying to get the right adjustment. "It didn't crystalize with the catalyst… So it's not pure jet, but…"

"They want to market it separately," Bernie thought aloud. "More cash that way. Simple. But they can't test it on people if people won't take it, so they just hide it something familiar."

"That sounds very true, but we can't say for sure…"

Bernie frowned at Coleson, irritated. Of course she was right. She was an addict. If anyone would know, she would.

"It's not a fifty-fifty mixture. Whatever this is, it's mostly jet. You can see a lot of smaller crystals under the scope. I'd say about thirty-seventy, but I can't be sure, not without smarter equipment."

 _You could titrate it and measure reaction threshold,_ Bernie thought bitterly, but didn't say anything.

"We need to get to Drowned City, to the Church of Moss' headquarters. There, we'll have access to more information, and we can find whoever did this to my brothers and sisters."

"Whoa whoa whoa, 'we'?" Bernie held her hands up.

"Of course, 'we'. I need you," Coleson stood, taking with him the half-syringe left of tainted jet.

"Why do you need me? I'm a lowly addict, remember?"

"Everyone is my brother and sister, under the god of the Church of Moss."

"Gods-above," Bernie cursed. "I'm not going."

Coleson turned, halfway through scrounging up his backpack, "Why not?"

"Because I don't want to," She growled.

"We all have to do things we don't want to sometimes, Somberness. And you aren't a lowly addict. Lowly addicts don't know what titration is, or marketing strategies, let alone how to _read_."

Bernie felt herself blanche.

Coleson caught it, "For the deep darkness beyond the swamp, did you think I wouldn't _notice?_ The writing on the sides of the medical crates. 'Dynamic Stall' and bees?" he laughed, "That was good."

Fury erupted in her, and she said with as much venom as she could muster, "You don't know me, ghoul."

Coleson threw his pack over his shoulder and stalked up to her, too close for comfort. "You're right. I have no idea who you are, or where you come from. _My guess_ is you're some sort of vault experiment gone wrong, and to deal with it you dope up on jet and phsyco just to deal with your own failures. But what _I know_ is that you didn't take the jet you held in your hands this morning, and you're the lone survivor of the chem that a whole sect of my church was killed over, the sect that helped your sorry ass time and time again when no one else gave a shit about you." He stepped back and threw his head over his shoulder, "Now pick up the goddman backpack."

He started walking with heavy bootsteps towards the gates.

Bernie looked at the backpack. It was small and ragged. She had already made this decision this morning, she thought. And she had chosen the jet, as much as Coleson thought otherwise. But here was this second chance. Another opportunity. Another time, to ask again the question: Am I willing to deal with myself the rest of my life? She looked at Coleson, who had yet to look back at her.

And what if I fail? She thought miserably. If she didn't pick up the backpack, she could know with some reliability her life would be short and sweet, running away from the pain. And she'd be alone. She remembered that heart-breaking aloneness that came with the withdrawal of the super-chem, and shuddered. There was no way she'd risk that again. And if she picked up the backpack, she had a chance, not a good one- but a chance, that that wouldn't happen. A better chance.

The straps scraped against her shoulders. She'd have to find some ducktape, and soften them up.

"Wait for me!" She shouted, jogging to catch up to the ghoul. He hadn't gotten far, but she already felt out of breath again by the time she matched his pace beside him.

"You sound awful," He remarked in a cheerful voice, as if he hadn't just shamed her into joining him.

"I've been taking highly addictive chems for the past few years, give me a break."

"When we get to the city, we'll get you into a bed with lemon water. But for now, you're on your own, unfortunately."

"Isn't there any withdrawal meds in the city?" Bernie asked.

Coleson shook his head, "Not in months."

"Gods-above," she cursed.


	5. Chapter 5: An Interlude in the Dark

********Author's Note: Heroes are only as great as the villains, and usually less so *********

"You've been a very naughty boy." The black room was very dimly lit. Supposedly for effect.

"Aw, yeah," the man said softly, almost to himself. They heard him from the shadows where they hid, and they smiled at each other, white teeth flashing in the dark. They turned to him in sync, and stalked over, their long coltish legs ending in tall, studded heels, wrapped in leather up to their thighs, thong, leather around their hips and up to their breasts and over their faces. The porcelain masks they wore covered their eyes, small black holes the only way to see out. They were twins, in both the physical and literal sense. Triplets, actually, but their brother was not there.

The painted blue eyes and long lashes on their masks seemed to stare vacantly, but their heads were cocked at identical angles, studying the man strapped to the chair. His legs were tied at the knees, to spread them, a hood was held over his head, to blind him, and his erection was already very noticeable.

"So naughty," the other twin echoed, red lips permanently pouting.

"Whatever shall we do with him?" the first one said, running a hand down the man's arm.

"He's so unfortunately clothed," murmured the second.

"Rip my clothes off," his voice was startlingly craggy against the two purring women. "Yeah, rip 'em off."

"Rip your clothes off? Are you sure that's how you want to take your punishment?" The first twin sounded surprised.

"It sounds violent."

"Too violent for you, naughty boy."

"It sounds extremely unwise."

"C'mon, give it to me," the man growled from under the hood, "C'mon you bitches, it's what I came for."

"Oh, you'll cum alright."

"But probably against your will."

The man gave a throaty laugh, and seemed to strain against the straps. The two women looked at each other, and walked to either side of the man. His fingers tapped the armchairs impatiently.

At once, both women leaned down and lifted the chair. "Wha-?" The man had time to gasp before they flipped the chair over onto its face. The bottom of the chair was hollowed out to reveal the flappy seat of his pants, and one twin gave the other scissors while she intoned.

"A very naughty boy indeed."

"This ain't what I signed up for!" The man shouted. "I didn't want to be ass-fucked! Hey! Hey, stop doing that! I ain't no homo! Stop!"

"The price for rape in the Drowned City is rape, Mr. Chilocothe."

"Fuck-, I said stop! I mean it! Stop! Stop that!"

"Clunksie and Stumpsie, come in here please," called the second sister.

"Don't you know who I am?!" The man was screaming now, completely vulnerable, sickeningly pale ass prone to the world, the high-back of the chair tilting him at an all-too easy angle.

Two bots rolled in on tracks, upgraded and specially fitted for the Funhouse.

"Don't you know who we are?" purred the first woman.

"Clunksie, go ahead," the second sister took a few steps back, and supervised as Clunksie's arm started to work its way inside Mr. Chilocothe.

The man was screaming piteously. He stopped to take a breath, "Stop! Please, I'll do anything!"

"This isn't an open market, Mr. Chilocothe, this is a courtroom, and this is your punishment. The rules were very clear," The first woman said as he screamed and fought against the straps in his chair.

"Rape for rape," the second woman said.

"Fuck! Stop it, please! Ah, Gods! Please! I'm sorry! I'm sorry okay!? I didn't know she was one of yours!"

"Apologies won't bring her back to us, Mr. Chilocothe, though I dearly wish it could."

"Usually we would let you go," the second one piped up, "But you had the bad luck of picking on one of our favorites."

"Shame, what you did to her."

"Damn shame."

"What was it, he said?"

"I think he told her he was going to fuck her until she came for him."

The first woman stepped around the chair, "Yes," and she bent over and snatched the hood off of his face, so he could see her over his arm. He was an older man, with snot running down his face and tears making his eyes bleary. "Pathetic," she breathed. Her porcelain stare no longer seemed strange and exciting, but dangerous, and cold.

She stood suddenly, "Clunksie, fuck him until he cums. Stumpsie, take the other side."

He grunted every time Clunksie went in, but now he screamed again, "Stop, uh, please! I'll do anything! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Uh, No, please don't-…"

"Fuck 'im until he cums," Declared the first sister, louder this time, "Then fuck him 'til he's dead."

And with that, the sisters turned away at the same time and stalked away, back into the shadows, as Mr. Chilocothe's screams became muffled and hysterical. A steel door was shut behind them, swallowing the man's howls forever.

They walked in silence for a few moments, only small grates letting in light above them. The walls around them were dingy concrete. Ancient exit signs and arrows pointing out different areas of the park were their only decoration.

"What do you think was your favorite part?" One sister asked.

"I liked it when he realized we enforce our laws."

"I liked it when he screamed for mercy."

"But that was the _whole time_."

"Exactly," Laughed one sister, and they laughed together, voices tinkling cheerfully. They linked arms.

"He shouldn't have done it."

"No ma'am."

"Boys always think with their dicks. It's like they have no brain of their own."

"And they always have to have it their way, or they get pouty."

"But they think with their dicks, so do they even realize what they do?"

"They must not. That is why they must be controlled."

"It's the only way."

A third voice, masculine and soft, broke out from a dark hallway they passed, "Having fun with your prey again?"

One of the sisters started, and stamped her foot, "Damnit, Malcolm, I hate it when you do that."

"And I thought you promised never become personally involved in punishings again," a man stepped out of the dark, as tall as the women wrapped in leather.

"This one deserved it," said one sister grudgingly.

"Yeah, he raped Henrietta," The other sister pulled off her porcelain mask. Her black hair fell into eyes as dark as oil pits, which still gleamed in what little light there was.

The man they called Malcolm blinked and paused, taking this in. "I was never told."

"You didn't need to be told," the second sister said coldly. She snapped her mask off with an audible _thwack_. She resembled her sister remarkably, but for a small scar in the corner of her mouth.

"I didn't need to be told?" Malcolm stepped forward, eyes dark and flat like a shark's.

"She means we didn't think you'd care," The first sister said flippantly. "Malissa is always charging ahead. Aren't you?" She asked tentatively.

"Yeah," Malissa grunted, turning away, "Charging ahead."

A sudden scrapping came from the end of the hall, "Massa Malissa." A ghoul's warped face came out of the dark. He wore a collar made of gold, and his blurred, cloudy eyes gazed distantly at the floor.

"I'll be there, Phillip," She unlinked from her sister and stalked down the hallway, heels clacking noisily.

"She's still angry over it. Don't push her," she whispered to Malcolm.

"Malanna," he whispered back, "You must speak to her about this. I can't allow this to continue."

Malanna looked at her brother sharply, "Not again, Malcolm."

"I heard the way she was talking. She's getting out of hand again, and again she's going to hurt us. Hurt what we've built here. And she's not going to be nice about admitting defeat either," Malcolm said calmly. His eyes were black as pits, like his sister's. But whereas theirs sparked and shone, his seemed to suck the light out of the air around him. Malanna looked into them and saw how serious he was.

"Okay. Okay, Malcolm."

"Okay," he breathed, relieved. "Just… Talk to her about it, okay?" They followed after Malissa together. "Besides, Chilicothe could have easily been a sacrifice. No one really cared about him. But he was important enough to make a spectacle. Prime target."

"Yeah," Malanna agreed, but her mind was on other things. Mr. Chilicothe had suddenly become a much more important fixture in politics than she had first thought. Only instead of becoming an example to the masses, he was becoming an example between themselves.


	6. Chapter 6: Dreams from the Swamp

"Stay awake, Bernie!" She could hear Coleson's voice from far away, "Just stay here!"

Her eyelids seemed to weigh a hundred pounds each. Her head was swimming, but that might be from Coleson shaking her. Her heart palpitated. It was so hard to breathe. The heat seemed to crawl into her lungs and bake and crack them.

The withdrawal had started soon after sunset on the first night. She had felt a little better in the morning, but the feeling of exhaustion, the sourness of her blood, had returned tenfold. She had stopped six times to vomit that first day of walking. Now it was a struggle just to keep her eyes on Coleson's warped flesh, on his teeth, gritted in concentration.

"Water," she gasped.

Coleson sighed heavily and sat back. It was one thing to find water in the swamp. It was another entirely to find something to drink.

"Bernie, Bernie listen to me," he took her head in his hands. His palms felt scratchy and unbearably warm.

Bernie groaned, and tried to wriggle away.

"I'm going to go find some water, and some more food, okay? I'm going to find some water. Stay here, okay?"

Bernie groaned again. She could hardly move. Where was she going to go? But she didn't want to be left alone. She remembered the terrible, awful loneliness from the withdrawal of the super drug. She wanted to grapple at his scratchy hands as they left, but her fingers wouldn't move.

"I'll be back, okay? I'll be right back!" His voice got smaller and smaller and then it disappeared completely.

"No," her voice cracked, "No," it was so hot.

The sound of the bugs and the hum of the air came rushing in.

"Coleson!"

Bernie gasped for air. Lances of light blinded her, then went dark again. The singing of the bugs made her skin vibrate and slough off. _Don't leave me here,_ she thought desperately.

Where was she? The slight slashed across her face.

She seemed to levitate and then be pressed down by an incredible weight.

The light shone on her face then was taken away again.

She was dizzy without moving. She was spinning slowly, and laying still. Was she flying?

"Coleson," she breathed, feeling her grip on the light on her face starting to go. She felt herself sinking, down through the muck. The oily surface of the swamp seemed to soak her skin, her face, and the weight of the mud came slowly onto her. She gasped. Her veins stung. Bernie heaved against the heavy darkness, tearing at the roots and grass that suddenly sat on top of her. She was being buried alive, eaten by the swamp. The swamp was trying to eat her! She strained with her chest, trying to sit up. Begging herself to sit up. Her jaw set itself in an iron vice, and she roared, tearing out of the water.

Suddenly the weight was gone, and she shot upright. Breathing was easy. She hardly noticed doing so. Her arms and fingers felt light, and strong. Nothing creaked. Nothing hurt. Bernie touched her face.

"Am I dead?"

Not only had the pain gone, she felt it replaced with… Warmth. Her body didn't hurt anymore. It did not sing for drugs or feel weak and shaky. She felt… new? No, not new. Whole. She hadn't felt this way in… years.

"No! Of course not!" She spun around, and found a small white girl staring at her as if she'd sprouted two heads.

"Meloncholia? What are you doing here?"

"Studying?" The girl called Meloncholia packed up her books, eyeing Bernie suspiciously, "And I told you never to call me that." She started down the hill, the soft, solid, grassy hill. Where was she? This place was eerily familiar, especially with the sunset. "Now come on, Doctor Stoltz will wonder where we are."

"Shit," Bernie muttered, picking up her books. Stoltz would kill them if they were late again. That man never had a sense of humor. His face was a permanent frown. Maybe it was the line of work. You had to be a certain kind of someone to crack someone's skull open. Bernie stood, and started to run after Meloncholia, but something stopped her. "Wait…"

"What? Come on, we're going to be late."

"Melon…" Bernie shook her head, a nagging suspicion in the back of her mind.

"Yeah?" The girl put a fist on her hip, the picture of sass and youthful energy. Pretty and strong. She'd be a force of nature in ten year's time.

"This isn't real. You're dead. You've been dead for three years."

Meloncholia's face fell. Her fist dropped from her waist, and the books fell with hollow thumps on the dirt. "What did you find, Bernie?" Her voice was small, afraid.

"What?"

"What did you find inside me?"

Bernie felt the danger suddenly, large and looming. She had to get out of here. This was a dream. It was too close. Too close to the Long Time Ago.

Meloncholia suddenly sobbed, a huge, shuddering, gut-wrenching sigh, "Just tell me!"

Bernie turned to run back up the hill, and Meloncholia followed her, screeching.

"You're safe now child. Help is here," A tree put draped its soft moss over her face, grizzled bark peering at her through two knotholes.

"What's going on? Where's Melon?"

But the tree didn't answer. The sun shone through its branches as they swayed in the breeze, light lancing across her face, bright and dark, bright and dark.

The darkness turned cold. Wires raced their way around her chair, collected at her temples. "What have you learned, Somberness?"

She closed her eyes and thought seriously. The ethics of Plato, the theorems of the great geniuses before the war. The works of art that disappeared in time, the progress made. The diagrams of pre-war weapons, the maps of pre-war minds.

"Impressive."

Bernie smiled, pleased with herself.

"Nearly identical."

"I'm ready, Doctor Thorn."

"Almost, Somberness. Patience."

Patience, the girl lost at the fifth tier. Weak.

"I am strong, Doctor Thorn."

"I know you are, Somberness. But you are yet flawed. You'll have to wait for your upgrades like everyone else."

The tiny blue pills. She loved the tiny blue pills. They meant everything here. They were status, they were life, they were the future. They were everything. They looked remarkably like Mentats, actually. Mentats.

Bernie gasped, "No."

"Don't be churlish, Somberness."

She looked at her hands, bound to the chair, "No, stop! Get me out!" Panic threatened to swallow her whole. She strained at the wires binding her. "You can't! I won't let you!"

"Won't let us what?"

She felt the moss from the tree drift across her face again, and the restraints fell away.

"She can't."

"We have no choice. She's dying."

"She was getting better! She was seeking help!" The dark became soft, the faces of the trees drifting in, pressing close.

"She was seeking help for her high, you mean. I know these swamp-types. They're back at their fix before you can even turn your back. It was just a matter of time, Coleson."

"Coleson!" Bernie cried out.

"She was looking for help. This will only set her back."

"She will die unless her body receives what she's craving."

"No!"

"Get him out of here."

Suddenly light filled her veins and it burned her alive, screaming.

She stood deep in the swamp, dark and dank foliage creeping around her. The air had probably never been breathed by humans mouths. It was so desolate. Bernie swung around, looking for the next visitor from the Long Ago, but she couldn't see anyone. This looked like any other vision from the swampland. Cypress trees dug their tangled roots into the muck. Floating islands of grass drifted on the surface. This was different. Less real. She couldn't decide why, until she took a step forward and found herself walking on the water. The soles of her feet were cold as she sloshed through the muck.

"Hello?"

There was a rushing of wings behind her, and she turned just in time to catch a streak of red land behind a tree. She ran over to inspect it, sliding to a stop on the surface.

"Hello, is anyone?..." It was a bird. A red ibis dipped its head down from the low branch it occupied, long yellow legs gracefully folded underneath itself.

Bernie stared. The feathers were bright scarlet, the color of fresh blood. It looked unreal. She turned, taking in the landscape. The trees seemed to close in, moving ever so slowly, and now ripples ran across the water.

"Disgusting creature," a small, creaky voice whispered.

Bernie whirled, but it was only the ibis. Its beak was long and strangely perverse with a rounded end, the beady black eyes blinking slowly.

"Hello?" Bernie called again into the swamp.

"Stupid thing," came the whisper.

Bernie turned back to the bird, "Are you talking to me?"

"Rude, disgusting thing of flesh," it croaked, "Nasty, unclean rot of mortality."

"You're not so aristocratic yourself," she growled, surprised she wasn't more surprised a bird was talking to her. Not _to_ her, though. _At_ her.

"Mortal example of failing will and spirit," the ibis' voice was creepy. It creaked like old wood, small, but sinister.

"Why am I here? This isn't the Long Time Ago."

"How should I know?" The bird swiveled its head, eyeing her.

"What is this place?"

"The Plane of Wind and Blood," the bird answered. "Deep within your mind, and also deep within your world, and deeper than you've ever been outside yourself."

"What?" Bernie looked at her feet, still sloshing around on the water's surface. She looked behind her. The trees seemed closer. They seemed to lean over towards her, peering at her. "Are we alone here?"

"Of course not," the bird croaked, disgusted.

For some reason, that raised the hair on the back of Bernie's neck, "Then who else is here?"

"Ignorant little piece of flesh-rot," the bird grunted to itself again.

"I must be hallucinating," Bernie said.

"I am shocked," the bird hissed again.

Bernie rubbed her arm, "So does that mean you're just my imagination?"

"I am as real as you are," the bird looked up, into the trees where the yellow sun filtered through in tears, "She watches. She will not show herself yet. Not until she is sure."

"Sure?" Bernie asked. "Sure of what?"

"How should I know?" The red ibis said bitingly. It paused, head cocked to the side, listening. "It's time for you to go."

"Go? How?" And suddenly Bernie felt the firm surface of the water break, and she was sucked down into the swamp with a splash, before deadly silence swallowed her whole.


	7. Chapter 7: Awake

Awake

"Bernie?" Coleson's voice was soft.

Bernie groaned. Her skin stung in tender places and her bones seemed to creak like old wood. Sleep was a warm blanket ripped away unexpectedly. She felt as if she'd been beaten half to death. But she opened her eyes, and found Coleson sitting across from her, not unlike the night she first met him. But this wasn't a rusty, filthy mattress, with springs that creaked and moaned. This was stuffed with something, and it was soft, and it sculpted itself to her body.

"I'm alive," She assured him, and sat up. This wasn't a tent. The walls were stone. It was dark in here, save for two small windows on either side of the room. "Where am I? How did…"

"I found the Church of Moss, and brought them back to you. You nearly died…" He was silent, staring at the floor for minute before saying, "It was a mistake stopping you cold. We should have weened you off the drugs over time. And to march you out into the swamp like that… Chief Harlstone was right. I was an idiot."

"I'm not disputing that," Bernie said with a half-smile. Coleson looked up. "But I'm not dead."

"You're not wholly alive either. You've been in and out of it for days. Harlstone administered some kind of jet to you a few days ago, but the shock to your body was… Intense. How long had you been taking it before?"

Bernie sat back again, feeling her own walls creep up slowly. The details lay in her small silence, before she spoke, "A few years, maybe. With some mentats and Phsyco in between. Time flies under the influence."

"That's a long time."

"I've been a long time gone," Bernie admitted, eager to get away from this topic. "So are we there? The Drowned City?"

Coleson was already shaking his head, "A few miles yet. This is as close as the Church dares go."

Bernie paused, "Why?"

Coleson frowned, "What do you mean?"

"Why can't we get closer to the city?"

Coleson blinked, "No, I suppose you wouldn't know. Ghouls, mutants, other kinds of people affected by the war… It's dangerous for us in the city."

"Dangerous? Like how? Like you're attacked?"

Coleson winced, "Not quite."

A ghoul suddenly strode into the room, taller that most and wearing a scarf made of tree moss around his neck, armor made of some kind of dark wood over his chest and shoulders. Bernie remembered the men from her dreams, the trees that leaned in toward her. "He means to say that we redactives are enslaved there. Trafficking of our peoples has been a staple of the city's economy for decades now, since the last of the great drug wars. Coleson, sit."

Coleson had risen when this ghoul entered the room, and now sat again, "Bernie, this is Chief Harlstone. He's in charge of the camp here."

"Your boss?"

"Yes, I'm a member of his tribe. This is my brotherhood."

Bernie nodded, and turned back to Harlstone, " 'Redactives'?"

"We prefer the term 'affected'. Whether by radiation or simple human tinkering, those not wholly human. Made different somehow. In our case, it's our appearance, and strength," Harstone sat beside Coleson. "This drug is an example."

Bernie didn't understand at first, "You're talking about the drug I took? The super-drug?"

Harstone said grimly, "Coleson has been telling me about your run-in with the raider, and what happened at the camp."

"I don't know what more there is to tell," Bernie admitted. "I'm sure he told you about my supplier?"

"He did. Though I find it improbable to believe, I have to trust Coleson. Unless you led him to another supplier? To protect your original source?"

The accusation took Bernie by surprise. The ghouls in the swamp hardly ever questioned her. She supposed they figured she lied anyway. But to be directly accused stung anyway, "No. I have no other supplier."

Chief Harlstone grunted.

"I'm telling the truth," Bernie crossed her arms over her chest defensively.

"Perhaps," Harlstone sat back. "Unfortunately there's no way to know for sure. But you're welcome to go when you feel better. The Church has done all it can for you."

"Wait," Coleson piped up, his raspy voice raising an octave, "You're just letting her go? What about…" He glanced nervously at Bernie, "All the other stuff I told you about?"

"We have our own detectives working on it. Yourself included. Now that our southern camp has been destroyed, we must rebuild. You are needed there, Coleson. Let the addict figure out her own future." And with that, Harlstone left as suddenly as he appeared, the door thumping behind him.

"What a jerk," Bernie growled.

Coleson shook his head, "Just rebuild? Just like that? After all those people were killed?"

It did seem very sudden. "Do they even know who did it?" Bernie asked.

Coleson was silent. His molted hands worked hat his knees, eyebrows knit in concentration.

"Coleson?"

"It was the Massas. At least that much we know. But there's very little way to make a difference there."

"The Massas? What are those?"

Coleson looked at her sharply, "Where did you come from, Bernie?" He was silent, waiting for her to say something. Bernie didn't answer, drowning out the memories the dreams had brought back. "You don't know about the redactives, you don't know about the drug monarchy that established them, do you know anything about the Drowned City?"

"No," Bernie said simply. She shuttered her face against his other questions, to show she wouldn't crack.

Coleson sighed, "I guess there's no harm in explaining things."


	8. Chapter 8: How Things Are

How Things Are

"It wasn't always like this," Coleson prefaced. "Used to be we were just labor. Redactives, I mean. Ghouls in particular. We can work out in the sun, go without water, that sort of thing. We were tougher and can work longer than most smooth-skins. So we were good workers to have in the fields.

"But about fifty years ago, these pale-skinned people from up north showed up in the Drowned City. Paler than most of us, I guess, at any rate. Inky black hair. Came in on a ship."

"A ship?"

Coleson nodded, "Pre-war. Used to run on gasoline, but they had it powered in with these big sails, big as clouds, they say."

"Gasoline?"

"No one believed them, of course. That sort of technology was hundreds of years old, but no one knew where they came from otherwise. Nowhere from the southern coastline. Pruendine hadn't heard of them. The Blasted Dunes hadn't either.

"Anyways, they were inexplicably wealthy, and established themselves within the city's aristocracy quickly. Far too quick, if you ask most people. And coincidentally, the plantation owners of drug farms loved them especially. Pretty soon the drug trade was booming within the city. The old aristocracy saw what was happening and tried to put a stop to it, but they disappeared. One by one. As if the ocean was just swallowing them whole."

"The ocean?"

"The sea runs between the streets of the Drowned City. That's why they call it that, because half of the pre-war buildings are half underwater. The city council members and those with a little skin in the city's trade would be seen out on their boats, going to and from home, the store, whatever, and they'd disappear. There was a rumor that that Massas brought with them technology, or a god, depends on who you ask, that could control the water."

"That's impossible," Bernie snorted. "Nobody can just control _water_."

"Magic, or no, nobody's been able to disprove it," Coleson said seriously, "You have to understand. People started freaking out. A group of the last of the aristocracy confronted the Massas, and that was when things really went to shit. No one realized how much control they had amassed. They even used their own addicts to take out old ruler's strongholds, threatening to withhold product unless certain aspects of the old way disappeared.

"Ghouls had always been looked down on. Menial labor jobs. Not many of us in positions of power. People have always been a little scared of us. We look… different, you know. And there are so few of us. There was a small rebel force, the origin for the Church of the Moss, actually, but it was put down pretty quickly. There was nothing to stop them from kicking us down the rest of the ladder. Either we obeyed, or we were killed, and there was no justice for us. It wasn't much to convince plantation owners to convert their hard workers into free labor. The Massas supplied them with the guns and the know-how. Human nature did the rest."

"That's awful."

"That's smooth-skins for you."

Bernie was quiet for a moment, "I hope you know that I'd never do that…"

Coleson gave her a wane smile, "I don't think you would. But I've seen kinder people do much more terrible things."

Bernie wanted to defend herself, to object, but held back. She saw the way his shoulders hunched. "Were you a slave?"

"No," He said softly, after a moment. "But someone I loved was. She was taken in a raid. We got her back, but she wasn't the same. She was… Different," Coleson sighed, "Whoever I had cared about, she was taken away from me… I never really did get her back. Not in any important sense."

Bernie held her own hands, bending the fingers backward, unsure what to say. "I'm sorry," she said finally.

"Don't be. Not your fault."

"Did she ever… get better?"

Coleson scratched his bare head and stood, "You should be getting some rest. We need to figure out our next move pretty soon, before Harlstone kicks you out."

"You mean…"

"You're gunna help me find the original supplier. Because the bees don't just make that stuff on their own."

Bernie nodded. She wanted to ask about Coleson's person, the one he didn't really get back, but was too afraid to. She didn't want to push him any more than she already had.

Coleson opened the door, and paused before he stepped out, as if he was going to say something final, something important. But all that came out was, "Feel better."

"Okay," Bernie said lamely, and when he was gone she felt the silence press in. It was less of the stone walls kept the swamp out, and more that it kept her in, like a trap. The buzz of the insects wasn't so loud here. She couldn't feel the heat on her face, and found she felt strange without it. Loneliness was suddenly with her, like a real and tangible presence in the room. She wondered where Coleson had gone. To get supplies, probably. To figure out how on earth they'd make it into the city, maybe. When she shut her eyes, all she could think about was how he seemed to bend over when he talked about the city, as if some invisible point was digging into his gut, hunched over in pain. She wandered what happened to his person in there. She decided she didn't want to know.


	9. Chapter 9: The Plan

"So the issue isn't finding someone who might have answers," Coleson sat beside her, packing med kits. One syringe. One case of buffout. One stimpack. Bandages. Lock the lid, stack it on top of the last, start the next one.

"What's the issue then?" Bernie wasn't trusted with syringes, so she rolled bandages. Strips and strips of gauze in tight little rolls. Her ragged fingernails caught on the edges and tore again.

"The issue is getting me into the city."

Bernie thought to argue that she could go by herself. Logically, she felt herself sufficiently motivated to investigate the massacre… Not that she would know where to start. There was that, and the creeping wisdom that maybe she _couldn't_ be trusted in the big city. She was on a strict regimen of jet until her body stopped trying to kill itself in withdrawal. How was she supposed to handle a town run by drug kingpins?

"Right."

"I know you don't know much about the Drowned City, and you can't help on that score… But you are human, wholly human, that is. That's our advantage."

"Right. But we still can't figure out how that's going to happen."

"…Right." Coleson's shoulders started to hike up.

"So who's the guy on the inside?" Bernie said quickly, to change the subject.

"Merc. Sometimes he helps the Church. Sometimes he helps the Massas. Sometimes he helps the Old Boys. Whoever's the highest bidder, sort of thing."

"Yikes."

Coleson nodded seriously, "We don't like dealing with him. But it's also necessary to have someone who's willing to look the other way when slaves are running off the fields."

"And he'll be able to help us?"

Coleson nodded again, "I have enough saved. And a few of the other brothers are invested in our quest. We are family here. Not everyone is willing to move past the massacre so easily."

"Good," Bernie breathed, "I'm not either." She slid a pyramid of bandages over to his side of the table, "So what do we do in the meantime?"

Coleson looked up, "We try to figure out a way in. A way to meet our contact, without getting ourselves enslaved or worse in the process."

Bernie walked away towards another table to get more linen. When she returned, she found Coleson's hands frozen over a med kit, a look of concentration on his face.

"Trying to close it with your mind?"

Coleson's gaze was ice-cold and cloudy, "Have you ever been to a slave auction?"

Bernie blanched, "God, no."

"It's awful. No one cries, no one screams. It's silent. A silent kind of hell. I think that's what we're going to have to do."

Bernie sat down with a _whump_ , "What? _Sell_ you?"

Coleson looked at her sidelong, "You have a better idea?"

"No," She frowned, "But I'm sure we could _come up_ with one. Gods Above, everything is so crazy. First the drug, then the massacre, then the _dreams_ and now _this_ -."

"What dreams?" Coleson asked, taking the top bandage from her small pyramid.

"I had these crazy dreams while I was… under. I think after Harlestone gave me the Jet. I saw someone who died a long time ago, and this nutty red bird that talked…"

"You saw a red bird?" Coleson said suddenly. "What did it look like? What was it saying to you?"

Bernie shrugged, "A red ibis. What's it matter what it was saying?"

Coleson turned to her, "Was it in a swamp where the earth swallowed you? Did it talk about the Pagan?"

"The Who?"

"Did you fall into the earth after it sent you away?"

"Yeah, but-…"

Coleson gripped her hand, "Bernie, why did you tell me this earlier?"

Bernie tried to pry her hand away, but his grip was like a vice. His cloudy eyes gazed fiercely into hers, "I didn't think it was important," she said truthfully, "I thought it was some drug-induced hallucination that-."

"Come on," Coleson pulled her to her feet, "We have to talk to Brother Harlestone about this, he'll want to know."

"Know about my dream? Why?" Coleson was fairly dragging her through the camp, bringing in the stares of other ghouls.

"Because I don't think it was a dream. He'll explain it, better than I."


	10. Chapter 10: The Heron

Harlestone wasn't impressed with Bernie the first time they met, and he certainly wasn't impressed now.

"Explain this, Brother Coleson."

"Brother, she dreamed of the red ibis."

They had burst into the tent where the captain lounged in a chair, looking at a map on the wall with a sour look on his face. His expression didn't change when Coleson explained what Bernie had seen.

Bernie felt herself becoming smaller. He woudn't listen to her. Coleson shouldn't have brought her here. She didn't belong here. She should have left the campe when she had the chance.

"Is this true?" Harlestone asked, frowning at her.

"Yes, sir." Her eyes felt forced down to the filthy jumpsuit they'd given her. It wasn't slowly being eaten by lice, as her old one had, but that didn't improve the feeling that she was being judged. She felt like a wadded up and then straightened out piece of paper.

She heard his shoulder guards knock against his wooden breastplate as he shifted in his chair, "You'll understand my skepticism."

"No, actually, I don't," She burst, frustrated and embarrassed at how embarrassed she felt, "I don't understand anything. I don't see why dreaming about this damn bird is so important."

"It might be. It might be nothing," Harlestone raised his hands. "Why don't you take a seat, and tell me about it?"

Bernie sat stiffly in the rickety chair. One leg was shorter than the other, so she rocked backward. Coleson took a step back, as if to leave, and Bernie shot him a pleading look. He couldn't leave her alone with him. Coleson raised a flat hand, as if to say, _I'm not going anywhere._ He sat on the floor, cross-legged.

Bernie looked back at Harlestone. His face was politely blank. He didn't look like he was about to throw her out, but he didn't look like he was excited to hear what she had to say either. A tough nut to crack. She didn't understand what dreaming about a red ibis was meant, and she didn't understand why it was so significant he might not believe her. It wasn't as if she dreamed about an ancient religious relic, or buried treasure.

"When I was… Recovering," She picked that word. It seemed the least harmful. "I had weird dreams. Really weird. I saw people from my past," Harlestone didn't interrupt, but moved his fingers to steeple in front of his gnarled face. "And I dreamed about the red ibis. I was in a swamp. I was… I don't know what doing in the swamp, but I was… I don't know. It felt like I was being watched. And the bird was there, and I was talking to it, but I was also walking on the water in the swamp, so-."

"What did the bird say?" Harlestone interrupted.

"Not much," Bernie shrugged, frustrated not at Harlestone, but at the memory of the bird. "It was… Mean. Skeptical of everything I said, always had something to say. It said it doubted if I was good enough."

"Good enough for what?" Harlestone asked.

"How should I know? It didn't answer any of my questions."

Harlestone grunted. "Is that it?"

"Pretty much. Then when it decided it was done talking to me and I sank into the swamp. Then I woke up."

" _Sank_ into the swamp? That's hardly unique."

"Well, it was scarier than that, sir," Bernie popped her knuckles, "It was like it swallowed me whole, like a pill."

Harlestone leveled his cloudy gaze at her. "And you had this dream after we had administered the Jet?"

For some reason, Bernie blushed. "I guess so." It felt like he was insinuating something, but she didn't know what, or why.

Harlestone grunted again.

"Brother," Coleson said, "If I may…"

Harlestone looked like he was going to wave an imperious hand and silence Coleson, but at the last moment nodded.

"It's been years since Madame Dubois died. Longer than usual. Would it be so strange that the Heron Mother chooses a newcomer like Somberness? She speaks of all the signs, Brother. And we need guidance."

"You're referring to the southern camp."

"The _massacred_ southern camp. The Heron knows it's-."

"Do not presume her will, Coleson, that's a good way to get us all massacred."

"Who's the Heron? Why is she important?"

Harlestone flicked an irritated glance her way.

Coleson explained, "A deity that resides here. She is the sister to the Wolf Father, who is the husband to our patron Mangrove Mother."

Bernie raised her hands, "Wait a second, you actually worship gods?"

Coleson looked confused, "We are a church, are we not?"

"Yeah, but, I don't know. I thought it was a metaphor, or something. I didn't think you were actually _religious_."

"Very," Harlestone confirmed with impatience. "And the Heron is dangerous. We do not take her will lightly."

"But gods don't _exist_ ," Bernie said.

" _Hush_ your sacrilege!" Harlestone hissed, "I have been tolerant of your prolonged presence in this camp, but I will not allow the gods to be dismissed so lightly by the likes of you."

"The gods were killed after the war," Bernie said, hands gripping her chair, "I don't understand-."

"No," Harlestone said with a voice made of steel, "You _don't_."

Silence moved in and seemed to press against Bernie's chest. Harlestone was staring at her, Coleson was fidgeting behind her. She could hear his legs shifting against the dirt.

Harlestone stood suddenly, "The Heron is a deity of mischief and power. She dabbles in our world the same way children play with dolls."

"She's an evil god?"

"No," Harlestone waved a dismissive hand, "No more than hurricanes are evil. It's just her way. When she feels she can gain something by playing with us, she will. Otherwise, we're ants, trying not to be stepped on."

Bernie shook her head. "And you believe she exists?"

"We know she exists," this time it was Coleson. "She's the one who sent you the visions. She can reach into a mind and twist it. She can't tell the future, but she can… Give us hints. Influence people. Tell them things or offer prizes that shift their point of view. The Church has been lucky to have them in the past. The Heron has saved the Church on numerous occasions."

"At a price, of course," Harlestone added.

"Nothing for free?" Bernie asked.

"Naturally."

Bernie picked at her nails, "And if she's decided she… needs me, in some way?"

"We don't know that. I'm still not entirely convinced your case is a true one. You might have simply caught a glimpse of her."

"Well, then, how do you we know for sure?"

Coleson stiffened. Harlestone remained impassive.

Bernie looked back at Coleson, who looked sad. Despite herself, a hum of excitement went through her. Then a rush of shame. She tried to keep it off her face.

"I have to go back under, don't I?"

"It seems that way," Harlestone's voice was full of misgivings, "Lucky you."


	11. Chapter 11: Return to the Swamp

Coleson's hand was warm in hers. Bernie lay on the mattress, pillow under her head, unsure whether to feel eager or embarrassed. She wanted the Jet badly, she _needed it_ , but Coleson was here, reassuring her that she would be okay, and not be afraid, and she was ashamed at how little fear she felt. She wasn't worried about the potential of meeting a deity. She was worried she wouldn't. If the goddess didn't talk to her, no more Jet. And then it'd be right back to square one.

"Any tips?" She asked Coleson. Harlestone was waiting outside the tent. Three other brothers from the Church bustled around her, making sure the Stimpaks were within easy reach if her body decided to deteriorate under the high.

Coleson shrugged, "I suppose it won't hurt to be polite. But she's known to be unpredictable."

Bernie took a deep breath, which Coleson must have mistaken for nerves.

"She might not even show herself to you. Just be careful. She's killed people when they go to her before."

"Oh my god, you never told me that!" Bernie raised her head.

"I mean, it rarely happens-!" Coleson's face was horrified.

Bernie feel back, chuckling. "I'm just kidding, cos. I get it," She thought about the red ibis, and what it said to her before. "Besides, what's one miserable addict in the scheme of things?"

"That's the spirit," Coleson's voice was uncharacteristically sardonic.

"It's time," one of the attendants said. The ghoul was female and had a voice like sizzling acid.

Coleson backed away and let the ghoul take his place. Bernie noticed she bothered with tape and a bit of cotton after the needle came out. The Jet was already taking her, zipping her off to a technicolor dream, but she had just enough time to think, _Well, that's a little unnecessary._ And then the first vision took her.

Meloncholia clung to her in the dark, "Don't let them touch me, Bernie."

"Melon," Bernie's arms wrapped themselves around her shoulders, holding the child close to her.

"Don't let them _touch_ me!"

"Shhhshh," Bernie didn't trust her own voice. It was black as pitch. There was no room to move, no air to breath. They were locked inside something. Fear had seized her heart, a black, sopping-wet blanket of panic had draped itself over Bernie's brain.

"Bernie-."

"Quiet, Melon, we have to be quiet."

They strained their ears, listening. Bernie imagined she heard footsteps. Melon started to cry and Bernie clamped a hand over her mouth. She was shaking. They both were.

Three small slats of pale green light were overhead. The walls were freezing, and metal. A locker? What were they doing inside a locker? And suddenly Bernie remembered. This wasn't a vision, like the other ones. It was a memory. A memory of a dream, a nightmare she had for weeks in the Long Time Ago. She and Melon would run through the vault, running, hiding, searching for a door to escape behind.

But it always ended the same way.

And the door was flung open, and their eyes were burned with bright white light. Bernie raised a hand to protect her eyes, and Melon was pulled away from her. She clamored after her, but many large hands pushed her back, and Melon slipped through her fingers. Melon was going to die! Melon was already dead.

Bernie sobbed and fell to her knees. The silence of the swamp pressed in on her. Bernie gasped at the chill of the water. She was back. Bernie looked around, wiping her face. It was just a dream. Like always. It was always just a dream.

She stood on shaky legs. The eeriness of the swamp wasn't diminished by its familiarity. But it had worked. She was where she was supposed to be. There was no sound as Bernie walked between the trees, in no particular direction. If the ibis, or the Heron, whoever she was, wanted to find her they would. Only the sound of her feet splashing along the surface of the water was heard. There were no bugs, no birds, nothing to indicate she wasn't completely alone.

The vision of Melon bothered her. Was it something she did to her own mind, or was this the Heron's doing? She hadn't even thought about that particular nightmare for a long time. It had happened right after Blues had failed to get his upgrades. It hadn't bothered Melon, but it had bothered her. Bernie shook her head, trying to physically shake the memory out. Can't think about that. Never again. That shit belonged in the Long Time Ago, and she wasn't looking to mess with it.

It was this place. It made her mind weak. She'd have to remember that.

"Hello?" No answer. No whispers. No birds. "Hello?" She couldn't help but feel impatient. Before the red ibis had been so eager to talk to her.

She heard the water stirring. She turned her head. Behind the next line of trees she saw a figure rise up out of the water, huge and bulky. It was man-shaped, but she couldn't understand what the other shapes on it were. She ran forward, behind a tree, and peered at it through the groves. Water splashed as it shook itself like an animal. But it was certainly a man. Through the haze, Bernie saw now that there were the horns of a stag on his head. There was also something wrong with one of his arms. He stood strangely. She wanted to get a better look, but Coleson's warning about being killed in this mystery place held her back. She watched as the creature cocked its head to one side, listening, then started away. The legs scissor-ed unnaturally, making her stomach turn. Bernie saw now they were the haunches of a deer. The half-man half-stag was a lot less graceful than a full of either. He walked with a lumbering quality, rocking side to side, as if his legs were strange to him too.

Bernie crept closer, following him at a safe distance. His arm was that of a deer too. At the wrist it narrowed significantly and turned cloven. He couldn't hurt her with a mangled hand like that.

"Hello?" Bernie called. The half-man didn't hear her. "Hello, I'm looking for the ibis?"

Bernie walked after him, "Hey, man, could you help me out?" The beast ignored her. Despite herself, Bernie felt frustrated. He was bigger than her and could obviously hurt her still, even with one good hand, but that didn't seem as important. She was close now. There was no way he couldn't not notice her. "Hel- _lo?_ "

Was she being ignored? Why? She ran in front of him and waved her arms, "Can – You – Hear – Me?"

His eyes went through her. They were dark, a brown so deep they were almost black, but human enough. The hair the horns grew out of was black and unkempt on a tired, squarish face. He needed a shave. Bernie thought, with surprise, he looked like an addict. Hardly an ethereal swamp guardian.

But he was fit and well-muscled, with a deep chest and big shoulders that lumbered. As he walked up to her, she expected him to knock her down. Bernie yelped and shivered as he passed through her like a ghost, leaving behind a cold, slimy feeling.

She heard wooden laughter from up in a tree. The red ibis stared down at her, perverted little beak seeming to bend and curl in a smile.

"Oh," Bernie said, fighting the urge to wipe her hands on her shirt, "So nice to see you again." She looked back at the half-man that lumbered away into the marsh, oblivious.

 _Wish I could say the same._

"What was that all about?"

 _Meat creatures. All the same._ The ibis flew down from its high perch in a flurry of color. It landed on the root system of a mangrove tree, nearer to her. _So impatient. Must have all the lines dotted for them._

"Who was that, the thing?"

The ibis rustled it's feathers imperiously. Bernie resisted the urge to growl.

"Why am I here?"

 _Stupid girl,_ the bird snapped. _You know why. The ugly ones told you._

"That doesn't answer…" Coleson had said that the deity sometimes wants things from mortals. For a price.

"What does the Heron want from me?"

 _Impertinent, noisy thing. Doesn't realize the gifts she's been given._

"I'll thank you, as soon as you tell me what's going on."

 _It's not me you should be thanking._

Bernie rolled her eyes, and remained silent. She waited for the bird to say something, and when it was clear she wasn't going to speak until it did, the bird continued on, as if no pause had taken place.

 _My mistress sends you a gift, as a sign of goodwill._

"A gift?"

 _The Plane of Wind and Blood is a place of giving. It is where space is thin and time loses meaning._

"I don't understand, what gift?"

The bird ruffled it's feathers again, _The gift of a familiar face._ Bernie heard the water splashing in the distance. It took her a moment.

"You mean the monster-guy? But I don't know him. Who is he?"

 _The doughboy is an enemy, a slave, a lover, a sacrifice. Depending on what path you choose to take. Not even we know the future, of course._

"Doughboy?"

 _Mm. Disgusting creatures._

"Why is the doughboy important though?"

 _You're looking for him, aren't you?_

"No offense, but I'm not even sure if that thing was real. How can we be looking for what isn't real?"

The bird grumbled about how ungrateful and stupid she was.

"Look, I appreciate the gesture, but how can I help out the Heron if you don't speak clear to me?" Bernie raised her hands, "I can only do so much. I'm not some omniscient being, unlike some people."

The bird seemed to sigh, _Heron wishes to assist you on the hunt for those who murdered her followers. Let her._

"How?"

 _Follow the clues she has already given you. Follow the doughboy._

Bernie looked back over her shoulder, into the hazy trees. She could still see the half-man lumbering between them, mutant arm swinging. She turned back, "Yeah, but why-?"

The bird was gone. Bernie grumbled and turned toward the doughboy. Whatever that meant. He hadn't gotten far. She caught up to him in no time at all, and it was easy enough to follow him if she kept her pace up. What was he leading her to, though? She couldn't even guess.


	12. Chapter 12: A Clue

Bernie quickly took to walking beside the half-beast. He couldn't see her, that much was clear, so she was free to take a closer look. The metal legs The bird had said that this creature could be an enemy, a slave, a lover, or a sacrifice. Well, he didn't exactly fit her type, which leaned towards the 'wholly human', so that was doubtful. She also didn't like the idea of having a slave. Or of sacrificing anyone. In fact, all of the options seemed one way or another distasteful.

The creature seemed tired. A few times it ran its human hand through its hair and sighed heavily. But maybe that was just the lumbering way it walked. As the sky started to darken, Bernie began to wonder if the bird hadn't just sent her on some other-worldly goose-chase. A fine joke, following this half-man for all eternity.

"Ha ha," Bernie laughed dryly.

The half-man stopped suddenly, and Bernie, who had been walking behind him, crashed into him from behind and fell. The half-man whirled, and in his hands was a gun. A big, mean-looking gun that wasn't there before. Bernie didn't know what it was, but she didn't like how it was now pointed at her.

It was pitch-black. They were no longer in the swamp. They were… Bernie didn't know where they were.

"Wait-?"

"Who are you?!" He was obviously as surprised to see her as she was. He wore combat armor the gleamed in the night light, and his antlers were gone, but it was the same creature. She looked down at his legs. The gleamed too, jerky and backwards, rods of steal and nests of wires weaving in and around the structure. Metal legs.

Bernie crawled backward, confused and afraid, "I'm nobody!"

"Nobody, eh?" When his feet hit the ground her head rang. It was like a giant's step. His face was mean now. What had been sallow tiredness was replaced with a ruddy and fearsome expression whose bottom teeth were bared at her. She raised a hand to protect her from the barrel of the gun the swung towards her face, and his other hand snuck behind her and picked her up by the collar of her jumpsuit.

"Please! I was just told to follow you!" Her fingers dug at her throat, seeking a zipper or a button to loosen. She couldn't breathe.

"Follow _me?"_ He held her as if she weighed nothing. She gripped his arm, trying to lift herself, trying to get a little more air. It was hard and cold, made of metal too. The hoof-hand.

"By the red ibis!" She choked out.

He dropped her like she was hot to the touch. She landed hard. No longer in the swamp. She coughed, vying for time, taking a good look at the pine needles under her hands. Where was she? How? How could she have moved from one place to another?

"Why are you here?" His voice was caught between a growl and a scream.

"I-I told you I was told to follow you-."

His arm moved faster than she could react, and she was flipped over onto her back, "I heard you the first time, but _why?"_

"I don't know why!" Bernie shouted at him. He moved to hit her, "He said- said that you were a familiar face!"

"A familiar face," he paused, "What does that mean?"

"I don't know!" Bernie backed herself up until she hit a tree, and used it to get to her feet. She felt shaky all over. "I'm supposed to know you. From the future. They said I was looking for you…" And she felt the wind taken out of her.

"From the future, that doesn't make any sense! Nothing that bastard does make any sense. Why are you here?!"

It all made sense. _As gift. As a sign of goodwill, the Heron sent a gift._ Something they were looking for. Not some _thing_. Some _one._

His metal fist seized her shoulder and shook her, making her neck pop and crackle. Bernie felt like she'd just been rocked out of her body, but she could still hear the big scary guard shouting at her.

"We were looking for you! Coleson and I!"

"Why?" his face was inches from hers.

"Because you could find who massacred the southern Church. The-the Church of the Moss camp!"

"What are you talking about? Why do I give a shit about some ghouls who got themselves shot-up…"

"That's why the Heron sent me, I'm supposed to find out!" She managed to push his hand off of her, and held her elbow close to her. She felt fragile and shaken. "And you're supposed to help me find who did it."

He straightened, face hard to read.

"Where am I?" She asked finally, after a few minutes of tense silence.

He blinked slowly, shook his head, muttered something to himself and turned away.

"Hey!" Bernie shouted, "You don't just get to-!"

He turned and put the muzzle of the rifle to her face. Bernie didn't think she'd ever seen anyone as intent on shooting her as him. She'd been shot at before. In minor, glancing skirmishes with other addicts. They had been small game. People just pulled the trigger mostly to make noise and scare the other off. This was an entirely different kind of intent.

His lips formed a straight line, and he shook his head and lowered his gun, "I must be a dead-man walking."

"What?"

"This will help you find me again," he reached into a small pack slung over his chest and took out a piece of wax paper. Bernie took it, not understanding. "Don't lose it."

"Wait, you're not going to stay?"

"No, _you're_ not going to stay." He put the cold muzzle barrel between her eyes, and Bernie had just enough time to think about how _cold_ that little circle was before he pulled the trigger.


	13. Chapter 13: An Interlude in Architecture

The old woman woke with a start that tried to kick her old heart out of her chest. Her nerves were shot through with stinging electric sensation. She felt a cramp start up in her right calf.

One day she's going to wake up and scare herself to death.

She sat up slowly. It wasn't as easy as it used to be. Everything creaked and groaned. A chill had crept in off the large, glass windows that covered the near wall. Her bones squeaked in protest, like rusty hinges, but she forced herself to her feet. Her hand shakily searched for her walker, which she found right in the place it had always rested. She was getting too old for this. Not that she'd ever admit it. She didn't get this old without a healthy sense of self-preservation. Without a little bit of wile. She wanted to die in her sleep of natural causes.

She pried herself out of bed, and started the journey across the hall. The big cushy rugs in her room were small hills she had to trudge and heave her walker over. An uneven floorboard a cliff to scale. It was the middle of the night, and her eyesight wasn't what it used to be, so at times she would bump into these obstacles and just have to guess at the heft she needed to put behind the walker. She had to try twice one time. That really took it out of her. She wasn't as young as she used to be. Lords no.

She eventually reached the door and opened it, though the coldness of the iron handle hurt her skin.

The hallway was at least dimly lit by Glowtorches, which cast a warm poison-yellow light on everything. The shadows couldn't hide the disdain on the faces of the people in the portraits. They lounged or rested or sat in various degrees of noble boredom. She had always hated the portraits. They had a bad… feeling. A miasma of sorts.

She knocked softly of the door across from hers, eager to be out of their sight. A soft voice answered, the door was quickly opened by a tall, regal man with skin the color of coffee and milk.

"Mama Phokapsie, what is it?" He straightened the satin robe that fell to the floor.

"I had a vision."

He opened the door to ushered her in. Mama Phokapsie was glad to get out of the hot stares in that nasty hallway. He settled her into a velvet-lined chair near the fire that had just been started. The chill off his big windows seemed to diminish immediately.

"What is it, darling?" A woman with tallow-colored skin in a robe of black velvet wiped sleep away from her eyes.

"Mama Phokapsie had a vision."

"Oh," The lady was extremely beautiful, and her lips formed a perfect "O" as she sighed. The man went to her and clasped her hand.

"Bring us some tea, would you, my love?"

She gazed lovingly up into his face, "Of course."

She left out the way Phokapsie had entered. He again sat across from her in his chair, next to the fire.

"Tell us, Mama. Tell us what's happened." He used the word 'us' and 'we' a lot, even if he was the only one in the room. It was one of these people's little quirks. She felt even older and more wrinkled next to them, like a used-up piece of charcoal. She was only accepted among them for her talents. If she had been a little less useful, well… there were only a few places women as black as her could find work anymore. It could be worse. She could be a ghoul.

"It's not a visionary. Not like me," she struggled to find the words to explain, "She doesn't… See the links between things… She has a much more direct line of communications to the swamp telepaths."

"What do you mean?" His voice was patient, encouraging.

"She speaks to them directly. I can only see their actions from afar, like lightning strikes," she said, interpreting the questions before he asked them. He was like his father in this way. Always curious to know how everything related, how everything was interconnected. It made him dangerous. It made him smart.

"Which you interpret for us," he agreed.

"She is what they call an Oracle. The telepaths speak directly through her."

"And why does this matter?" It wasn't a rude question, he was simply moving down the questions he had written in his mind, the questions he asked every time a new vision occurred. He believed in, above all things, consistency.

"The telepaths will have a more direct effect on our world than before. And," she said, raising a hand. His face had not changed, and he had given no indication that he was impatient, yet Mama Phokapsie had always had a keen sense of these royals, "She is coming here."

That surprised him, "Here?"

"Here. She is looking for Sonreirán."

"Him again?"

Mama Phokapsie shrugged, "He is favored by the telepaths. I believe, to them, he represents a kind of bridge between man and machine, as they are."

He shook his head, "Blasted machine he is. His parts are enough trouble as it is. The grafts are much more effective at keeping order," he leaned back, putting his chin in his hand, "It's getting harder and harder to justify him to the rest of the council. I think even he suspects something."

"He is a lightning rod to their lightening," Mama said diplomatically, "He is a useful tool in our arsenal. But I suspect you will find a way to keep him, you always do."

"Why was the Oracle looking for him?"

"She is seeking vengeance. For what, I could not see. The red eye kept blinding me and I couldn't tell. But she needs his help."

"And she will be coming here."

"Yes."

He grunted, "Good, then. We will keep an eye out for her." At that moment, the pretty woman returned with a silver tray with three cups and a dish of cream. Steam wafted off the rims of the delicate china, and Mama Phokapsie leaned forward to smell it. She looked forward to this small reward. She did _genuinely_ enjoy the tea.

He continued, as if he hadn't seen her, "And this will be just between you and me," he said quietly and the woman set the tray down on the small wooden table between them.

"Of course," Mama smiled, "And don't worry. I'll keep an eye on Sonny. He's been having problems with his dreams again."

He nodded.

Mama turned to accept her tea, and blew gently across the surface. The cup was hot to the touch, but she didn't dare complain.

She saw the pretty girl turn to give him his tea, and saw her stumble, and the old woman's heart dropped.

The hot liquid splashed across his knees, and he shot to his feet, screaming. He screamed about the heat, he screamed about how useless she was, how she tricked him into taking her into bed, about her soiled lineage, about how she betrayed him. Mama Phokapsie sipped her tea and kept her face carefully neutral. Her fingertips burned from holding the hot cup, but she didn't dare put it down, or they'd shake. The meaty sound of fists flying could not phase her, she had felt and seen worse, but the shouting always rattled her. She didn't know why. Something about a man raising his voice…

She didn't look at the girl when she was begged for help, and she didn't look at the girl as she was dragged out of the room, but when the royal had calmed down and enjoyed his tea and dismissed her, Mama Phokapsie couldn't keep her eyes from following the trail of blood down the hallway, joining the dozen other stains in the priceless carpet. She shuddered. She was a lucky old woman.

But it didn't always feel that way.


End file.
